Excel Copy/Paste Question

[Guy Kudlemyer]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4.11
Processor: Power PC

One of the most annoying things about Excel that I have found is that once
you ³Paste² and then move on to another cell, the ³Paste² clipboard
³forgets² and is rendered useless, requiring more ³Copy² and ³Paste²
routines. Shouldn¹t the Clipboard ³remember² what¹s on the Clipboard, as it
is with all other Mac programs?

Is there a way to rectify this short-sighted MicroSloth thinking?

All I want to do is to put something on the Clipboard in Excel and have it
be there, available for pasting, whenever I want to paste it, regardless of
whether or not I¹ve typed something into a different cell.

Can someone help me overcome this roadblock?

--Guy
Thurston, OR

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4.11
Processor: Power PC

One of the most annoying things about Excel that I have found is that once you
³Paste² and then move on to another cell, the ³Paste² clipboard ³forgets² and
is rendered useless, requiring more ³Copy² and ³Paste² routines. Shouldn¹t the
Clipboard ³remember² what¹s on the Clipboard, as it is with all other Mac
programs?

Is there a way to rectify this short-sighted MicroSloth thinking?

All I want to do is to put something on the Clipboard in Excel and have it be
there, available for pasting, whenever I want to paste it, regardless of
whether or not I¹ve typed something into a different cell.

Can someone help me overcome this roadblock?

--Guy
Thurston, OR

No, no one can. This is a ³feature² of Excel since day 1. It has always
worked exactly this way on both Macintosh and Windows forever. If you want
the cell contents, then highlight the stuff you want to copy from the
formula bar and copy that. This will persist after other cells are selected.

 

[CyberTaz]

Okay, you guys have gotten me totally confused

No, no one can. This is a ³feature² of Excel since day 1. It has always
worked exactly this way on both Macintosh and Windows forever. If you want
the cell contents, then highlight the stuff you want to copy from the
formula bar and copy that. This will persist after other cells are selected.

There's no question that Copy works differently than Cut and there's a
distinction imposed by whether the content cut/copied is a Formula. It's
further been my experience that both work differently on a Mac (OS X) than
Windows versions of Excel (although I'm not certain about Vista & 2007).

In Mac Excel 2004 or 2008, Tiger or Leopard, what I experience is:

COPY any cells = paste repeatedly all day until you cut/copy again... Even
close the file you copied from & continue to paste the same stuff until you
actually Quit Excel.

CUT formula cells = first paste is formulas, successive paste is results of
last formulas pasted which can then be pasted repeatedly as above.

CUT non-formula cells = paste repeatedly as above.

In PC Excel:

COPY any cells = the same unless you press ESC which clears the clipboard.

CUT any cells = Paste *once* and you're done

My understanding is that Clipboard is an OS feature, not a program-specific
feature which accounts for the difference on PC v. Mac. However, later
versions of PC Excel provide the Office Clipboard (Task Pane), which Mac
Excel doesn't have. That feature is app-specific but across Office apps.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac